And the winner is.....Houseguest! (aka Mom)

Last weekend was my birthday-yay me! Side note: I have been doing this blog for over a year! Can you believe it....*sigh* It was over a year ago since this---> Click here! 

 I have come so far....or ... have I?

So anyway, it was my birthday and my mom came out to visit me for a few days. I tried desperately to be ready for her. I had lists people! House cleaning lists, grocery lists, activity lists and a list of new recipes to try! Then, life happened. And by the time it was practically game time (night before my mom arrived) my lists had turned into something more like What Are The Absolute Bare Minimum Items I Need to Accomplish In Order To Trick My Houseguest Into Thinking I Was Totally 100% Prepared For Her Arrival List. So here is what happened

Day 1-I still had to work this day so my mom was left to bask in the Arizona sun. Rough life I know. As I was scrambling to get ready for work  leisurely preparing for my work day I pulled out some frozen tilapia from the freezer and placed in the microwave to defrost for the day. In that moment I realized that I hadn't cleaned to microwave since we moved into our new apartment last July. THE HORROR!!! I frantically thought to myself, "Maybe she won't notice that it looks like someone died in there...." Right? When I got home from work that day my mom prances over to the kitchen, so excited to show me something. "Look what I did!". She opens the microwave like friggin' Vanna White. Her words, "Kels, it looked like someone died in there."

Houseguest-1   Host-0.

Day 2- I was showering and getting ready for our fun packed day of....well....that activity list wasn't exactly complete, so we didn't have much of a plan. Anyways, I was getting ready. Since we are amazing puppy parents we have trained Charlie to sit/lay nicely on our bed as we get ready. It is awesome. But this particular day I put him on the bed as per usual and when I got out of the shower he wasn't on the bed. Our door was shut so there was only so many places he could have been. I start calling for him and I hear his little collar jingling under the bed. So, towel and all, I get down to look under the bed. I see no puppy. I hear puppy but I see no puppy. It takes me a minute to realize that my puppy had created a hole UNDERNEATH OUR BOX SPRING MATTRESS and is UP IN the box spring ... just hanging out. The puppy mom in me starts freaking out. Still in my towel mind you I come running out of my bedroom, "OMG, MOOOOMMM he is STUCK in the mattress..bbbblllaaaa what do I do!" I of course though he was suffocating or something in there. He is going to ddddiiiiieeeeee. My mom is like,"Oh, this is no big deal, he totally did this yesterday. All you do is like maneuver him out...like this!" She gets down on all fours,  crawls under my bed and practically climbs up into my BOX SPRING to get Charlie out. "See, he is fine!"

ughh.

Houseguest-2   Host-0.


Day 3- Remember when I told you I had a list of new recipes! This is something I actually accomplished...kind of! yay! New recipe of the day-Taco Pizza. Had I been really domestic, I would have fixed up homemade whole wheat pizza dough. Instead, I bought Pillsbury pizza dough in a tube! Healthy I know. On the tube it told me to flatten out the dough. Simple enough. So I start kneading and pressing and pushing and shoving and violently pounding and WHY WON'T YOU FLATTEN. WHIIIINNNE. I could not get it to flatten out! I would push and press and it would flatten then slowly and slyly unflatten. Argh. What do I have in my kitchen drawer o' greatness to solve this. Then natural answer would be a rolling pin.

I don't have a rolling pin...hmmmmm....what is this!? A meat tenderizer. Perfect.

So move into a corner of the kitchen where no one can see me and I start POUNDING AWAY. My mom notices right away. "What are you doing!"She said laughing. "Here let me handle this part".  And voila-pizza pie!

Houseguest-3   Host-0.

Wait. It was delightful and I made it!.....Houseguest-3   Host- 1/2.


However, I did get one full point during the weekend. I promised my mom I wouldn't post this so don't tell her. Ever since I started volunteering with Wyldlife (see this post Wyldlife! ), I have picked up a number of phrases that middle schoolers frequently say. I never realized it was a foreign language until this. Or that I was turning into one of them.  One such phrase, "Oooohhhhhh snap!" Translation-daaaaannng chica, or in your face, or I am totally awesome.

We were driving in the car and my mom quizzically asks me, "What does snap mean?" I was confused for a moment then she said, "Ever since I arrived you have been saying, 'Oh snap.'" All I could do was laugh and tell her she would have to be 12 and totally awesome to understand. Obviously.

Don't worry mom the final score is still Houseguest-3   Host- 1 and 1/2.

You rock.

Going Green-Fail

I have this plant. At work. I have been in the process of trying not to kill it since like October. First, it was a lovely reception area plant. When it started turning brown I added WATER PLANT to my outlook calendar AT WORK so I wouldn't forget to not kill it. Then, I decided, "Plants need light to live! I must move the plant to light!". I relocated plant into the kitchen at work and placed it right in the window. Surely! This was the answer!


And then my plant turned brown again. A recall from some random taking care of plants memory told me that plants do well when you put coffee grounds in the soil. How convenient! The coffee pot lives next to the plant, I will just add coffee grounds. Surely! This was the answer!

And then my plant turned brown.....AGAIN. In a last stitch effort not to kill my plant I decided, as if I never had this thought in my life whole life, "Plants need light to live! I must move the plant to light!" My brilliant idea was to move the indoor plant, outside. In Phoenix. Which is a desert. Oh, did I tell you it has been triple digit degrees since the end of May. Oh, did I also tell you that I forgot my plant for 3 hours outside. Surely! This was the answer!


Needless to say, I think my plant is seeing its last days. I don't think leaves are supposed to be so limp. Weird, I know.






In other news we have been having car problems. The kind of car problems that when we turn a corner or touch a break there is a grinding noise akin to this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs





So, Mr.Z had an idea how to fix it. Underneath the car was this gross, oil soaked mud flappy thing that had been loose for months. He thought it was scrapping on the tires when the moved. Last night just as the sun was setting he decided that was the perfect time to pull the mud flap off. During his initial attempt he realized that a) the mud flappy thing was soaked in oil and so he was going to be needing gloves and b) he was pretty sure whatever else under there was going to give him espestic poisoning. Well, of course we don't have gloves of any kind so here was our solution:






Yes that is a hand towel from the bathroom tied around his face. And yes, those are in fact zip lock bags around his hands.


A little manuvering is all it took to get that gross mud flap off our car.







Once we were set, we got in the car to run errands. And then, the noise came back....

All The Right Numbers

Hello Internet. I have missed you. I wish I could tell you that I was out doing amazing things without you but you know that I would be lying. I was in fact, doing the opposite of amazing. I was preoccupied with that eevvvviiilll four letter word- W.O.R.K.

My numbers have been off for weeks people!

-50 ish hours work weeks

-100ish versions of the same spreadsheet

-6 ish hours of sleep a night

-Hundreds ish of miles driven

In my perfect dream world of regular work days these things are not normal.

But, all was not lost on me.

First, here is proof ...actual physical PROOF...that there are others like me out there:

Let me explain. It comes with perfectly proportioned adorable mini packages of spices. It has a CHECKLIST on the back of everything you need to complete the meal. It is a perfect packet from kitchen heaven that tells me how to make dinner--delicious nummmy dinner.

Here are the numbers I needed to become gourmet chef**** for the night:

--1 tablespoon olive oil- ah ha! I have this

--6 chicken breasts-amazing! I have like 8 of these

--red potatoes-$.50 for 5 of them!!

--fun packety thing of spices--check!

****Let me mention that a large percentage of my personal definition of being a "gourmet chef" is a) do I have to go shopping for ANOTHER random ingredient that I don't have readily available? Cause if I don't- gourmet chef!

and/or b) If I do have to go shopping, can I spend under 2$ to get what I need? If so-gourmet chef!

Believe it our not I have had all the right numbers throughout the weeks--in the kitchen.